Cool cucumber and cream cheese paste tinted pale green, served on white bread for the city's signature tea sandwich. The Derby weekend snack.
Where to eat it: 2 restaurants across 1 city.
Jennie Carter Benedict opened a Louisville catering kitchen in 1893 and a downtown tea room called Benedict's around 1900, where she developed Benedictine spread to fill cucumber sandwiches. Her original recipe combined cream cheese, cucumber juice, onion juice, salt, cayenne pepper and a slight amount of green food colouring. The spread was published in her 1902 cookbook and became a Louisville home-kitchen staple for over a century. Most pre-made versions still follow Benedict's recipe; modern chefs sometimes drop the food colouring.
Common allergens: Dairy, Gluten
Tip from the editors. Drain the cucumber thoroughly or the spread turns watery. Traditional Louisville recipes include the green food colouring; modern cooks often skip it.
Wagner's Pharmacy in Louisville has cooked diner breakfast since 1922, the Derby-week racetrack canteen across from Churchill Downs with breakfast plates.
Order: Country ham, two eggs, biscuits and gravy, sweet tea.
Tip: Walk-in counter. Closed Mondays. Breakfast all day Sunday Weekends fill by noon.
J. Graham's Cafe in the Brown Hotel serves Louisville's original Hot Brown, the open-faced turkey-and-Mornay sandwich invented here in 1926.
Signature: Hot Brown, Bourbon flights
Order: The Hot Brown, served the way Fred Schmidt wrote it in 1926.
Tip: Walk-in for lunch. Book the Lobby Bar through the hotel for an evening Hot Brown and bourbon.
More cities are in research. Want benedictine spread covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.